The New York Times just got a little more web 2.0 today with the launch of its social network. But the service is more likely to add more page views from existing users than increase traffic or expand its base.
TimesPeople, which was announced this summer as a Firefox plugin, is now incorporated into the site, allowing registered New York Times members to create profiles and collect friends.
It is more of a Digg (minus the voting) or FriendFeed rather than a typical network along the lines of Facebook or MySpace. Reader activity is monitored and "followed" in an overlay at the top including recommended stories, reviews and comments, but aside from that, the functionally is fairly limited -- which makes sense in terms of keeping the site news focused.
There is an option to also link your feed updates to Facebook (to share activity outside of your inner circle), but this isn’t very different from what many papers have already been doing for while now, including the NYT.
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